Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 stage play Gas Light, which was adapted into British and American films in the 1940s, is the origin of the term “gaslighting” that is used so much today. The story concerns a manipulative, evil man who kills a woman to steal rubies. He couldn’t find the rubies at the time of the murder, so he left and concocted a plan to come back and find them. Assuming an alias, he marries a lady who has the money to purchase this house years later. He attempts to drive his wife mad by orchestrating events and then telling his wife that she imagined things. Each night he would sneak into the attic to hunt for the rubies and light the gas lamps. This would cause the gas lamps in his wife’s room to dim. She told him about the dimming of the lamps, and he would tell her that she was imagining it. She was going crazy because he was manipulating her by re-writing history and making her think she was delusional.
As the story progresses, you feel the tension and spite for this man growing inside you. He is evil. He has, what Solomon describes in Proverbs, a perverse tongue.
Perversity is contrasted with integrity. Integrity is that which trustworthy because it is pure, solid through and through, uncompromised. The purity that is integrity makes an object or a person strong.
Perversity, however, is “crooked” and “twisted” (Pr 6.12-15; 8.8-9, 13; 10.31,32; 19.1). Perverse words seek to overturn God’s moral and ethical order; they defy and distort reality. They are words that insist 2+2=5 and then try to build houses with that math. They are words codified in laws that allow and affirm sexual deviancies of all sorts and believe that you build healthy societies with these types of relationships. They are words that praise the wicked and scorn the righteous. They are words that seek to establish evil by law (cf. Ps 94). They are words that believe you can build friendships, business relationships, or marriages on deceit or unfaithfulness.
Wisdom hates perverted speech (Pr 8.13) because it is inconsistent with Wisdom’s character and project in the world. Perverse speech seeks to undermine everything that Wisdom loves.
The primary characteristic of perverse speech is deceit. Deceit is not merely the absence of facts. It is the absence of faithfulness. Truth involves getting the facts as accurate as possible, of course, but it also means faithfully presenting those facts. “Facts” can be manipulated. We see this in the use of statistics all the time. As one man said, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” If the sugar industry wants to sell you more of their product or the environmental extremists want you to stop emitting carbon dioxide, they will manipulate “facts” to bolster their cause. At one level the facts may be technically correct. However, they are not faithful because they don’t consider larger pictures. There are facts, and there is faithfulness. Both make up the truth. Deficiencies in faithfulness are perversity.
We are experiencing deceit on grand scales in our society. Gaslighting is going on in sexual abuse allegations (in both creating fictional victims and predators), granting sainthood to obviously evil people, proclaiming that protests are “mostly peaceful” while we watch the city burn behind the reporter, telling us that we are in the best economy we have ever had, and completely rewriting American history. Have we always been at war with Eurasia today, or have we always been at war with Eastasia today? Deceptions are driving us crazy. Perverse speech only creates calamity and pain (Pr 17.20; see also 25.18).
Deceit comes in all forms. It need not be verbal. In Proverbs 6.12-15 and 16.30, Solomon describes the use of body language, winking the eye, signaling with feet, and pointing with fingers. We use all sorts of methods to deceive to avoid responsibility. When we are “technically correct” or we use language, gestures, or even silence to lead people to believe lies, we are guilty of perversity. This too brings calamity, and the deceiver will find himself irreparably damaged (Pr 6.15).
Perversity is not merely a mouth problem. It is a heart problem. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Mt 12.34). The one who speaks crookedly has a crooked heart (Pr 6.14; 17.20). At times he tries to cover his perversity as a worthless earthenware vessel is covered with the dross of a precious metal to make it appear valuable (Pr 26.23-26), using passionate speech to hide the wickedness of his heart. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” However, his heart will not be covered forever by this superficial glaze. He will be exposed in judgment (Pr 26.26).
Ultimately all deceit is gaslighting. All deceit seeks to create an alternative reality, an alternative to the way God created and sustains the world. Those who are seduced by it lose their minds (Rom 1.18-21). This perversity is an abomination to God (Pr 12.22; 6.17, 19). God hates it because it seeks to overthrow the good order he purposes for us. Abominations bring desolation. The perverse tongue will be cut off (Pr 10.31). The perverse will not inherit the earth.
Cultivate integrity. Avoid perversity and perverse people. Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies.
